Ten Lovely AND Free Sans Serif Fonts for Your Design Work

On our endless search for great free goodies and design resources for SitePoint readers, I always like to keep an eye on the world of typography. Luckily for us designers there are tons of typographers offering beautiful typefaces to download for free. As always, check the license on the typeface download. All the fonts featured here are available for personal use (such as on your own website), and many are open for commercial use, too.

Very interesting fonts indeed…
One things come to mind this morning while viewing them (and it most likely has to do with my lack of knowledge on typography) and that is, how do you pick the right font?
I mean, there a lot of material available online as how colors, shapes and patterns makes people feel. I have yet to see the same thing with fonts and we all know how much a font can make/break the message you’re putting online. So far it seems more like trial and error to me.
Any idea on the topic Jennifer?

http://www.laughingliondesign.net Jennifer Farley

Hi Myrdhrin
Well picking fonts can be a tricky one for sure, and you’re right different typefaces can create very different moods. I advise people when they’re getting started to stick to 2 fonts or less when working on a design piece – either web or graphic design. The two fonts can include regular, bold, light, condensed styles so there is still potential for a lot of variety but by choosing only 2 or even 1 font you will have a consistency.

Thanks so much for sharing these links. I love finding different typefaces and these look very nice.

Jason Cronze

TypeDNA have a very nice tool for browsing free fonts, it uses their unique attribute filters and similarity algorithm to find fonts fast http://www.typedna.com/freedna/

Louis Simoneau

It’s worth noting that several of these fonts (including Edelsans and Evolution) are licensed under Creative Commons licenses requiring attribution and forbidding use in commercial works, so although they are free to use, you need to respect the terms of those licenses.

http://www.onestopcontent.net 1stopcontent

Evolution is common now. But I’m confused with Louis’s comment. The above codes are free, so can be used publicly right?

Louis Simoneau

Go to the Evolution page, scroll down and look in the right-hand sidebar for the “License” block. It states that the font is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivs (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) … so your use of the font needs to adhere to the terms of that license unless you reach a separate agreement with the creator of the font.

That particular license states that: you can’t use the font for commercial work, you must attribute the creator, and you can’t create a derivative work based on the font (basically means that you couldn’t modify it to create a new font of your own). Other than that you’re free to download, share, and use the font however you want.

I think it’s really important that people pay attention to the terms and conditions set out by people who’re generous enough to provide their hard work for free. Don’t just go running around grabbing stuff and using it willy-nilly just because someone said it was “free”. It’s a wee bit of homework, but you’ll have a clear conscience knowing you’re not ripping anyone off.